Home entertainment networks are becoming popular and allow media stored on or accessible by a computer functioning as a media server at a central location to be presented at multiple nodes on more traditional presentation devices, such as a television, in a separate room from the computer. In order for a television to present such media, it is often connected with a digital media receiver, which in turn is connected with the computer over a home entertainment network. Similar networks are often found in hotel environments that offer video on demand services from a collection of movies and other programming stored on a central media server. The media server may function as a video jukebox by storing movies and other videos on a hard drive or by housing multiple (potentially hundreds) Digital Video Discs (DVDs) in a jukebox device (either internal or attached to the media server) that loads a selected DVD in a platter for optical reading and playback.
When serving media content (e.g., music, pictures, videos, television, etc.) to other computers and electronic devices on the home network, certain types of content do not naturally accommodate simple linear playback across a network. DVDs are one such type of content. Commercial DVD content is generally protected by content scrambling system (CSS), Advanced Access Content System (AACS), and other similar encryption schemes. Further, content on the DVD is stored in sections (e.g., chapters) that do not strictly following the ultimate presentation order. Thus, typical network streaming solutions for media content are not directly applicable because if merely copied directly from the DVD, not only would the data still be encrypted, the streamed data may be out of order and not suitable for linear playback by a media receiver in real time.
In a home entertainment network and similar environments, the decryption of a DVD thus occurs at the media server for the video media to be transmitted to the media receiver as a linear stream. This configuration results in unencrypted data being transmitted across a network. Such unencrypted transmissions generally violate content usage restriction licenses and other digital rights management (DRM) policies. Thus, current DVD remote playback solutions that rely upon bypassing the CSS protection present on DVDs have resulted in industry consortiums and content representatives initiating litigation against the companies marketing these solutions.
In addition to providing media to a remote rendering device, the computer may supply graphical components to the media receiver for the rendering of a user interface (UI) on the television. Such controls are generally rudimentary and merely offer the user the ability to start and stop the presentation.